


The Eternal Edge of Summer

by Peppermint_Shamrock



Series: Hallowshots [4]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Present Tense, Quite Literally, Timeline Shenanigans, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 02:03:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21028457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peppermint_Shamrock/pseuds/Peppermint_Shamrock
Summary: Marinette has a riddle. She knows the answer, but not the solution.





	The Eternal Edge of Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Some fics try to make sense of the show's timeline. In a way, that's what this one does as well - just, perhaps, in the opposite direction.

The evening is sweltering – humidity seeps through everything, so that even the magic bodysuit Marinette wears seems to cling uncomfortably to her skin. Hair sticks to the back of her neck, fraying and escaping from her pigtails no matter how tightly she binds it. Air conditioning units clatter and sputter in the windows below, struggling to keep up against the heat. It’s exhausting, this weather – stagnant and sapping energy from every creature until all anyone wants to do is nap, yet paradoxically the very same heat makes it impossible to fall asleep. Even one’s very thoughts seem lethargic, every action seems slowed, and the world seems muted. It’s the very picture of a lazy summer day.

But it is not summer. Not yet.

And perhaps not ever.

She isn’t sure when she noticed it or when it started. Then again, if she’s right, _when_ has become a meaningless concept. Time itself has become strange – dreamlike and fevered. The days march in place, never advancing even as they pass in the blink of an eye. The weeks have stretched on forever, always on the _cusp_ of summer – yet never reaching it.

_Asymptotic_, Marinette thinks, recalling the word from math class the other day, or week, or month.

It’s not just the unbearable heat that’s brought these thoughts out – though it’s certainly cleared away many distractions that usually clamor for her attention. It’s been a gradual, growing awareness – she thinks, though she can’t be sure – that something wasn’t quite right.

And even now that she’s at least put her finger on it, she still doesn’t understand _ why _?

She has some ideas, of course. Perhaps this is the work of a particularly insidious Akuma. Or perhaps all the stress has taken its toll and driven her mad. Perhaps she is very sick and this is all a fever dream that she’s become trapped in.

No answer satisfies her.

Worst of all, she’s not entirely sure that it hasn’t _ always _ been this way, with her only just now noticing it. She doesn’t like that feeling, that something major had escaped her – perhaps part of it could _ still _ be escaping her – for so long. Or short, as the case may be. She doesn’t know, and she can’t know.

The sun still hangs low in the sky. Marinette wonders if it will stay there as long as she keeps watching the sunset. Will the sky darken when she looks away? How long can dusk last?

Chat Noir sits near her, on the same roof. He, too, says nothing, the sweltering heat smothering his usual rambunctiousness as it smothers everything else. She wants to ask if he’s experienced it too, the strange way that time dilates and shrinks, the way that nothing ever changes. But she hasn’t dared to even ask Tikki. For fear that she’ll be thought mad, or that whatever force is behind this will take notice of her, and strip her of her awareness or remove her from time altogether.

The sun still hangs low in the sky.

The sunset is beautiful, of course, vivid orange and pink staining the sky. But it’s as still and unyielding as a painting, never dimming or shifting tone. It would make for a lovely dress design, Marinette thinks idly. Not that she has time to make it. Or maybe she does. It’s not up to her, is it?

She turns to her partner.

“It’s hot,” she says.

“_I’m _hot,” he ‘corrects’ with a grin, but his theatrics are still subdued by the heat. Marinette rolls her eyes anyway.

She doesn’t think he’s noticed anything unusual.

“I have a riddle for you, Kitten,” she says. He looks over, mildly intrigued. “What only moves forward, yet never advances?”

“Hmm,” he says, resting his claws against his chin. “A transverse wave?” he offers after a moment. “The wave itself travels forward but the individual particles only move up and down.”

She shrugs. “I suppose that works.”

She’s asked the riddle of a few others earlier.

“This isn’t one of your attempts to convince me to buy you a hamster, is it?” her dad answers playfully. “Because a hamster running in that little hamster ball fits that pretty well, doesn’t it?”

“A treadmill?” her mother suggests, in a similar vein.

“An investigation gone cold,” Alya says. “Or a player character on a side-scroller, maybe. Don’t tell me that _you_ of all people are stuck on a level?”

“There are many things that it could be,” Master Fu says, and the appraising look in his eyes gives Marinette hope. But he offers no answer of his own. “But I suspect that the important solution is your own – no one else can give you the answer you’re looking for.”

“I know the answer, Master,” Marinette says, and it’s true. The answer is time, with its strange illusion of motion disguising its true nature, as stagnant and fatiguing as the air tonight. Or perhaps the answer is merely herself. She is the hamster in this strange hamster wheel, the girl running on this inconstant treadmill, the player character on a glitched-out side-scroller. The particle on the transverse wave.

Not even Chat Noir can give her any help. Perhaps Master Fu is right, and she is alone. And it’s not that she hasn’t fought alone before, because of course she has. But tonight, in the oppressive heat that claims everything in this city, she feels small. With her partner at her side, perhaps it wouldn’t seem so insurmountable. But what can even Ladybug do against the whims of time?

A moment passes, and the sun is gone; the sky dark, as though it had never been there.

Marinette stands up to leave.

It’s still hot. Too hot to feel much panic or even despair at her situation. It’s not apathy, this resignation to the situation. It’s self-preservation – she’ll _actually_ go mad if she continues to dwell on this, and so she goes along with it.

“Goodnight, Chat Noir,” she says, and launches herself into the night sky. She hopes she makes it home before dawn, so she can get some sleep.

.

.

“Late _again_?” Alya says, incredulously, but there’s a fondness in her voice and a laugh in her eyes as Marinette comes to a stop, barely even panting even after running all the way over. The other girls all exchange equally fond and exasperated looks.

They’re going to the pool today, or at least that’s what Marinette’s phone says.

“You’ve really got to keep track of time better,” Alix says with little heat, even as she rolls her eyes.

And Marinette just paints a smile on her face, tilting her shoulders in that slightly self-deprecating shrug that says _I just can’t help it_, and she joins in with their good-natured laughter in response.

After all, that’s just quirky Marinette and her endearing foibles.

And who’d ever want _that_ to change, anyway?

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my [Dreamwidth](https://peppermint-shamrock.dreamwidth.org/) for daily WIP excerpts and sneak peaks, or follow my [Miraculous Tumblr blog](https://ladyofcreation.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
